Bonner
Miller Cutting, daughter of the late Ruth Loyd Miller, Oxfordian-studies
pioneer
and publisher, is herself an estimable historian with an astounding
familiarity with the subject. “The Case of the Missing First
Folio” constitutes a valuable contribution to scholarship. Ms.
Cutting engages the implications of the House of Anne Clifford triptych
as a Jacobean cultural symbol and conversely its, to-now, merely curious
omission of the works of the genius behind the stage-author “Shakespeare”.

So
notable an absence, with the slightest shift of perspective, gains
importance as plausible
evidence that Edward De Vere’s biography
and work fell into social eclipse during the turbulence of the English
Civil
Wars. Ms. Cutting’s analysis of one aspect of the era’s “towering
spirit of ruthless and gigantic caste” gives perhaps the first
indications that Lady Anne Clifford, who surely knew Edward De Vere
wrote the works of “Shakespeare”, could not acknowledge
the fact, since he had broken class taboos as a man and aristocrat-artist.

If
ever assembled, the true story of De Vere’s career would
be infinitely more tragic and humanly richer than the Stratford hoax—a
high aristocrat, transfixed by knowledge and art, found a way to change
the souls and Soul of his people by revolutionizing the scope and reach
of thought through public writing. But increasingly amidst English
class strife and repressions, that proved a fatal flaw.

There
would have been no such fateful drama for a commoner, were we to
retroactively
place Shakspere in the same position as author. After
all, Ben Jonson’s works were included in the triptych. He was
a commoner and a far lesser light than the ‘Star of England’.
Yet his work received praise and his master’s—none.

“The Case of the Missing First Folio” deserves
a broad audience. The essay is reprinted by courtesy of the author.
All publishing
and electronic reproduction rights remain reserved.

W.J. Ray

The Case of the Missing First Folio
by
Bonner Miller Cutting

Lady
Anne Clifford began her last will and testament with this list of
her titles and
dignities: She was the “Countess Dowager of
Pembroke, Dorset and Montgomery, sole daughter and heir to the late
noble George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland and by my birth from him
Lady of the Honor of Skipton in Craven, Baronesse Clifford, Westmoreland
and Vessey, and High Sherifesse by inheritance of the county of Westmorland.”1To
put it more succinctly, she was a triple countess, a triple baroness,
and a sheriff. However,
for the sake of consistency, throughout this paper this remarkable,
redoubtable woman will be called simply Lady Anne.

Born
in 1590, her life began in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and spanned
nearly nine decades well into the reign of King Charles
II. She constructed
and restored
castles and churches, put up monuments to family and friends, built and funded
hospitals and almshouses, compiled manuscripts of record books, family histories,
diaries and genealogies. Yet without a doubt her foremost achievement was
her ultimate victory in a brutal legal battle to secure, in
her own right, the
vast Clifford ancestral estates in northern England. Her father had bequeathed
these properties to his brother when he died, deliberately disinheriting
her through the terms of his will. She was 15 years old at
her father’s death,
and 53 years old when her cousin Earl Clifford died, and the longed-for properties
were finally hers. The three panels of her giant triptych— also known
as “Lady Anne Clifford’s Great Picture”—were planned
to commemorate these landmark events in her life. We will see shortly how
the “Great
Picture” became an integral part of her campaign to take charge of
what she invariably called the “the lands of mine inheritance” —
something that “had been her heart’s wish for as long as she
could remember.” 2

Originally
there were two of these mighty paintings. Of the two triptychs, only
the Appleby Triptych has survived to the present; the other, known
as the Skipton Triptych, deteriorated with the ravages of time and is
no
longer
extant.3 A
fine discussion of the Appleby and Skipton triptychs is found here
with information comparing the paintings. The
Skipton Triptych
was studied more as it was historically more accessible, and was reproduced
in
a fine water color (still extant) by George Perfect Harding. Spence concludes
that both triptychs were substantively alike, though minor differences
did exist. One should be aware of just how enormous this painting
is if one should
view it today at the Abbot Hall Art Gallery in Kendal, England. The entire
painting is nine feet high. The center panel is ten feet wide, and when
the four-foot wide side panels are opened, the complete painting
spans a show-stopping
eighteen feet
across!

Unfortunately,
we have absolutely no historical information about the painting and production
of the triptychs. We don’t
even know who painted them, though modern opinion favors Jan
Van Belchamp, a copyist associated with the
studio of Sir Anthony Van Dyck. This is a reasonable assumption as a
professional copyist is what Lady Anne needed; all but one
of the fourteen portraits to
be displayed within the “Great Picture” was to be reproduced
from earlier paintings.4 Though
the painting is unsigned, it is dated 1646, and the last family event
referenced in it occurred the next year in 1647.

The center panel memorializes Lady Anne’s immediate family when her two
older brothers were still living in 1590; she points out that she appears there
in utero. The right panel represents the young Lady Anne. Here she is “lively
depicted” (her words) at age 15 — the crucial point in her life
when she became her father Earl George’s sole and rightful heir
— in her view of things. The left wing shows the Countess approximately
forty years
later when the coveted properties, “wrongfully detayned,” were
finally hers.

Through the ages, the “Great Picture” has not received
high marks for artistic merit. Critics complain about its “undeniable
stiffness” and
some of the painting techniques are deemed inadequate.5 Yet
even so, the surviving Appleby Triptych makes an impressive statement.
Quoting an art critic, “no picture of the age aspires to function
as a family chronicle and intellectual history in a way comparable
to Lady Anne Clifford’s
triptych at Appleby Castle.” 6 I submit to you that it is the presence of the books that
gives this painting its artistic vitality and its commanding intellectual
stature.
Moreover, the books are the vehicle through which Lady Anne speaks
to us centuries later.

What is striking about this bibliographic display is that there
are so many books put on view. Approximately
fifty books are depicted,
most
of them located
in the right and left side panels. Some appear loosely shelved,
some are on the floor, and others are carefully arranged in
the background.
They
are all
boldly labeled to be readily identifiable. Furthermore, in an interesting
bit of overkill, the titles and authors are also listed right there
in the inscriptions
on the triptych!7 It is abundantly clear which authors
have been
selected
to receive Lady Anne’s explicit endorsement. The problem
that we will examine today is that Shakespeare’s First
Folio — or
anything representative of Shakespeare’s work — is missing.

This surprising omission is all the more puzzling because Lady
Anne Clifford was the wife of Shakespeare’s patron. Her
second husband, the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, was one
of the “Incomparable Paire of Brethren” to
whom the First Folio was dedicated. This simple fact
makes her very much an historical person of interest, especially
when her
excellent education and
her life-long interest in literature are taken into consideration.
We have here someone who is in the right place, at the right
time, and with the right
resume to know who Shakespeare was —or was not. We will call
on her shortly to take the historical witness stand. In the words
of the author of
King Lear, she will testify to “who loses and
who wins, who’s in,
who’s out.” I suggest to you that Shakespeare is
noticeably “out,” and
this is a case of conspicuous absence not at all in keeping with
the orthodox story of the beloved Bard from Stratford-on-Avon.
I’m asking you
to be the jury, to listen carefully to the historical evidence,
and take note of
what Lady Anne Clifford does not say.

In a law review article published in 1992 in the University of
Pennsylvania Law Review, United States Supreme Court Justice
John Paul Stevens
wrote on the Shakespeare authorship question. In this article,
Justice Stevens
emphasized
the importance of “significant silence.” He discusses “a
canon of statutory construction”—in fact the 4th canon
of statutory construction —which directs the judiciary to
look at the legislative history
of an issue. He quotes instances in which legislative silence
can be a pertinent factor in cases brought before the United
States Supreme Court, making the
point that silence is indeed a form of testimony. Justice Stevens
relates this canon to what he calls the “Sherlock Holmes
principle that sometimes the fact that a watchdog did not bark
in the night may provide a significant
clue about the identity of a murderous intruder.” Then
he compares the dog-that-did-not-bark to a number of absences
in the orthodox accounts of “Shakespeare’s” life,
most notably, the absence of “Shakespeare’s” library,
the absence of mention of books in his will, and the absence
of eulogies on his
passing. To quote Justice Stevens, “Perhaps the greatest
literary genius in the country’s history...did not merit
a crypt in Westminster Abbey or a eulogy penned by King James,
but it does seem odd that not even
a cocker
spaniel or a dachshund made any noise at all when he [Shakespeare]
passed from the scene.”8 As we shall soon
see, the case of Lady Anne’s Great Picture is right on
point; posterity is again presented with another case of what
Justice Stevens calls the dog’s “deafening
silence.”

It’s important, too, to put the Shakespeare First Folio into
its historical perspective. In the introduction to the Norton facsimile
of the First Folio,
Charlton Hinman, the eminent editor himself, makes several
provocative statements, to wit: “The mere presence of Shakespeare’s
name on the title page of such an edition, as the publisher of one
of them [the quartos] tells us,
was enough to ensure rapid sale. But a folio edition of thirty-six
plays was another matter entirely. It would call for a considerable
outlay of capital,
would take a long time to produce (the First Folio was ‘in
press’ for
almost two years) and would hardly, when finished, be in
great popular demand. It would be too expensive.” Hinman
goes on to say that “quick
returns could not be expected on a large folio priced at
one pound a copy — the
sum, we are told, at which the First Folio was originally
marketed – forty
times as much as the single-play quarto.” The First
Folio was a “decidedly
chancy venture and one not likely to appeal to many publishers
of the time unless” –and do note Hinman’s
exact words—“unless
some kind of guarantee against disastrous loss could be secured.” Although
Hinman states that “we know nothing of any such guarantee,” it
is an inescapable conclusion that the “paire of brethren” who
bore the dedication were the only parties involved in the
production of the First
Folio who were in a position to bear the cost.9 Moreover,
Pembroke, the older of the “paire,” was
the King’s Lord Chamberlain, and through this office
he was “responsible
for the control of all matters theatrical” among
his many other responsibilities for the court of King James.
Not many years later, his younger brother Montgomery
would hold this same influential position in the court
of King Charles. It seems an unavoidable conclusion that
the certain political connections and
probable financial underpinning provided by the “Incomparable
Brethren” were
indispensable in making available to the public the collected
works of William Shakespeare.10

Now we embark on a threefold task. First, we must look
at Lady Anne’s
character, education, and place in the social and political
milieu of the times. How credible a witness is she? Second,
we must examine her Great Picture—the
Appleby triptych—and view both the painting and the books
from the perspective of her contemporaries. What might
its impact have been on its intended
audience? The third part of the equation is the most difficult,
and the answer to these
questions are likely to be controversial. Why did Lady
Anne leave out Shakespeare? And is the absence of Shakespeare
meaningful?

But first things first: At the time when the First Folio was underway, Lady Anne was still married to her first
despicable husband, the
Earl of Dorset,
and her future husband, Philip Herbert, Earl of Montgomery,
was still married to his first wife Susan Vere. It is
well known
to Oxfordians
that Susan
Vere was the daughter of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl
of Oxford
from his first
marriage to Anne Cecil. Countess Susan and Earl Philip
had ten children; six survived to adulthood thereby becoming
Lady Anne’s step-children upon
their father’s remarriage to her. It is unknown
if Susan Vere and Anne Clifford were close friends, but
undeniably they knew each other. Specifically,
as young noblewomen in the Court of King James, in 1608
they were cast together in Ben Jonson’s Masque
of Beauty, then again the next year in his Masque
of Queens.11 The following year they were once
again fellow dancers in
Samuel Daniel’s
masque Tethys’ Festival.

Herbert was first married to Oxford's daughter, Susan De Vere,
by whom he fathered ten children, then to Lady Anne Clifford.
In this painting, Herbert is wearing the blue ribbon of the Order
of the Garter and
is holding the wand of office of Lord Chamberlain. This office
governed theater in the royal court. He was one of the "Incomparable Brethren"
in the First Folio dedication. Thus
he made the publication of the First Folio possible, together with
his brother, William, and he married directly into De Vere's lineage.

Reproduced by kind permission of the National Gallery of Victoria,
Melbourne, Australia. http://ngv.vic.gov.au

Anne’s husband the Earl of Dorset died in 1624. Philip’s
wife Susan died five years later in 1629, and soon
after that his older brother
Pembroke
died leaving him to inherit the great Pembroke title
and estates. The wealthy and available widower moved quickly
to propose the marriage-merger to the
wealthy and available widowed Countess of Dorset, Lady
Anne Clifford.

With her marriage to Montgomery (hereafter called Pembroke),
Lady Anne was attached to a mind boggling collection
of earldoms. Her
father
George Clifford
was the flamboyant 3rd Earl of Cumberland and her
mother, Margaret Russell, was the daughter of the Earl of Bedford.
In fact,
the number of earldoms
that Lady Anne had immediate sway over came to seven after her two daughters from
her first marriage both married earls. By the end
of
her life, her extended family included her Bedford
cousins, her Clifford
cousins,
the Pembroke
children, the Dorsets, the Thanets, the Northamptons,
and
the Burlingtons. She was
on surprisingly affectionate terms with many of them,
and, as might be expected, a thorn in the side of
others.

One can hardly find a noble family of great distinction
with whom she did not stand in fairly close relationship.
She
was on good
terms with
both
Lady Frances
Cecils. The Lady Frances, daughter of the Earl
of Exeter, was her son-in-law Thanet’s mother—they
shared grandchildren! The Lady Frances, daughter of Robert
Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, was the wife of Earl Henry Clifford – who
Lady Anne refers to as “enemy” and “opponent” Clifford.
Nevertheless, she was cordial with this Lady Frances,
and eventually stood godmother to one of her grandchildren.12 Additional
noble families through extended kinship included,
on her mother’s side, the Dudleys— via Aunt
Anne Russell’s
marriage to the Earl of Warwick, and the Bourchiers—via
Aunt Elizabeth Russell’s
marriage to the Earl of Bath. Powerful connections
on her father’s side
included the Stanleys — via her paternal aunt’s
marriage to the Earl of Derby, which also provided
kinship to royalty through the great-granddaughter
of King Henry VII. Another paternal aunt connected
her
to the vigorous Wharton
clan. In fact, Lady Anne highlights the importance
of the family relationships with Warwick, Bath,
Derby and Wharton
with the portraits of these four
aunts bedecking the center panel of her triptych.13

Historically, the Cliffords were intermarried with
the Percys (Earls of Northumberland) and the Talbots
(Earls
of Shrewsbury).
Her first
husband Richard Sackville,
the Earl of Dorset brought in the illustrious Howards – his
mother was Margaret Howard, daughter of the Duke
of Norfolk who was beheaded as
a result
of the Ridolphi Plot that swirled around Mary Queen
of Scots.14 Lady Anne’s correspondence
reveals her friendship with Queen Anne, who sent
her words of encouragement
in the darkest days of her lawsuit
over the disputed
Clifford inheritance.

Enough said. It was a formidable list of impressive
people who influenced Lady Anne and in turn came
within her
sphere of influence.
This goes
toward a major
point: Lady Anne was not socially isolated, but
someone who can be taken as representative of
the attitudes,
standards and cultural
taste of a
broad spectrum
of the upper class of the era.

Though quite certainly her impeccable credentials
place her at the top of the social register,
this is not
entirely what
makes
her such
a good
historical
witness. It is her lifelong interest in literary
pursuits that commands our attention. Moreover,
as we shall
soon see, she
herself chose
to showcase this
very erudition in a manner that cannot be ignored.

As Lady Anne’s education is central to this case, let us examine
this aspect of her background more closely. Lady Anne’s mother,
the Countess of Cumberland (hereafter called “Countess Margaret”)
hired the poet-historian Samuel Daniel to provide her daughter and
sole heir with an
education “not just equaling but superior
to that [which] her male contemporaries received
at the university.” It was a lofty
directive, and according to Lady Anne’s
biographer Richard Spence, the beloved teacher
of her youth developed in her “a familiarity
with the most widely studied works of her
time.”15 There should not
be the slightest possibility that Lady Anne
was simply unaware
of Shakespeare’s
existence or unable to comprehend his literary
significance.16

It is perhaps another indication of Daniel’s influence that,
in 1620, Lady Anne commissioned the monument to Edmund Spenser in
Poet’s Corner
in Westminster Abbey, paying the noted
mason Nicholas Stone the tidy sum of forty pounds for the project.
In fact, her monument to Spenser attracts all
the more attention because, in the words
of a commentator, it would have been more appropriate for someone
above Spenser’s station in life. Over three
decades later in 1654, she did precisely
the same thing for Samuel Daniel. Again, the monument that she commissioned
for him on a wall in the Beckington
church was “superior to that which
his social position merited.” Described
as a “recognizable bust,” it
was “the first monument in the
county designed in a fully understood classical
taste. For not only are there volutes and
garlands and an open segmental pediment,
but the man represented … wears
a kind of Roman toga and a wreath.”17

One cannot suppress the temptation to compare
this to the Shakespeare monument in Stratford-on-Avon,
and suggest
that whether the
original monument was
the woolsack man of the Dugdale sketch
or the “beautified” monument
seen today, it would have been greatly improved had Lady Anne Clifford taken
charge of it. All joking aside, she did indeed have the mental acumen and the
financial means to do for Shakespeare what she did for Spenser and Daniel,
both of whom she lifted up beyond their social station with superior monuments
— a tribute to her respect for them. However, that she did not is a signal
that “Shakespeare” just did
not resonate with the aristocracy in quite
the same way that Spenser or Daniel
did.

Before we proceed any further, I’d like to expand on my article
published in Shakespeare Matters, and provide more background
information on the events
that led up to Lady Anne’s commissioning
the Great Paintings. Historians give
her the credit for the great legal victory
that brought her the Clifford
estates, and certainly it was her indomitable
strength of will that made the difference.
Yet a closer look reveals that it was
Lady Anne’s mother,
Countess Margaret, who did the heavy
lifting, especially in the early stages.
Countess Margaret took it badly when
her estranged husband, Earl George, did
not provide for Anne as his heir. Moreover,
he broke the original entail from centuries
earlier when he directed the property
to his brother instead of leaving
it to Anne, his only surviving child.
What is known as “breaking the
entail” was a significant legal
point of controversy: when King Edward
II awarded the property to the Cliffords,
the entail directed the inheritance to “heirs
general,” rather than to “heirs
male”—so
that the property would stay in the direct
line whether the heir was male or female.18 When
Earl George died in 1605, Countess Margaret moved quickly to file
the law suits and the “submissions” necessary to support
her daughter’s
claim to the property. She hired the
best lawyers London had to offer, and did much of the laborious research
herself. The case was impressively argued
with evidence from inquisitions, exemplifications
of grants, charters, abstracts from wills, pedigrees and analogous
cases. If it sounds complicated, it was.
When all is said and done, it seems
assured that without her mother’s
efforts to keep the law suits going
in the proper legal timeline, Lady Anne would hardly have stood a
chance, her great courage notwithstanding, of regaining
her father’s estates.

There’s a wonderful story on point about Countess Margaret.
In 1614, she came to London to be with her daughter as the birth
of Anne’s
baby was imminent. At this point,
the legal battle that she had been directing
had
been on-going for nine years. Countess
Margaret took the opportunity to
visit the Tower of London to continue her
research in the great repository
of the
Chancery records. Unknown to her,
the Tower officials were closing up early
that day,
and either she did not know
that, or they did not realize she
was still there. Whatever, she was
accidentally locked overnight inside
the Tower
of London! By the time she was released
the next day and made her way to
Dorset House, the baby was born, and both
mother and child were doing well.19 In
addition to her researches in the
Tower of London,
Countess Margaret
frequented the
chambers at Westminster where
the records of the
Exchequor were kept, and she sought
out vital documents
in the Quo Warrento records which
were in the custody of the Treasurer
and the Chamberlain.20

Mostly Lady Anne just persevered.
Two years after Countess Margaret’s
unexpected sojourn in the Tower, King James took it upon himself to intervene
and stop the legal bloodbath. The King sought to arbitrate a settlement called
the King’s Award. The terms
of it were a disaster for Anne,
and had
she signed
it, it is thought by her biographers
that the Clifford properties
would
have been lost to her forever.
The pressure on her to sign and
to accept
the terms
of the award was intense. The King,
the Archbishop of Canterbury,
her
husband Dorset, and many other
notable personages demanded that
she sign.
Her husband Dorset was eager to
collect, on her behalf of course,
the 20,000
pound
settlement promised in the Award.

Anne wrote to her mother that she
would not sign off on the King’s Award “no
matter what misery it costs me.” And misery is what she got. With the
cash in mind, Dorset was merciless. In an act intended to humiliate her, he
dismissed her household staff, leaving her unattended and stranded. He cancelled
the jointure estates that he had settled on her when they married, removing
the income that would be her safety net if he died. Then ratcheting up the
pressure even further, he took custody of their only child, her not yet two-year-old
daughter, and hustled the little girl away to his brother’s house. Still
she refused to sign and relinquish her claim to the Clifford lands. The terms
of the King’s Award were
finally put into effect by compulsion.

Ultimately, Lady Anne’s tenacity and endurance did pay off. Although
her longevity was the primary factor in winning back her father’s properties,
the long years of legal maneuvering put her in a stronger position than a woman
might otherwise have been in to retrieve the properties she considered rightfully
hers. She had endured decades of disgraceful, vicious treatment and had emerged
victorious in an awesome struggle for dominance. It only makes sense that she
wanted the world to know of her triumph. But her personal victory could not
have come at a worse time. As previously noted, the year was 1643 and “the
world” was at war.

At this point Anne had been
married to her second husband
the Earl
of Pembroke for 13
years, but
they had been
estranged for most
of them. Nevertheless,
in wartime her safe-keeping
was part of his noble duty.
At his
behest,
she took
refuge at Baynard’s
Castle, the fabulous London
property belonging to the
Herbert family. Pembroke
apparently regarded Baynard’s
as his most defensible stronghold,
moving his household goods—furnishings,
silver, gold plate, tapestries,
art collection and other
valuables—from Wilton
House to Baynard’s
early in the conflict. It
was a real
win-win deal
for both of
them. Anne had a safe,
comfortable refuge, and Pembroke
had a house-sitter—or rather
a castle-sitter—to watch
over his valuable property.

She remained at Baynard’s, the “House of Riches” as she called
it, for seven years from 1642 until the summer of 1649 when the war ended.
Of course she did not spend the war years “in idle cell,” but
characteristically spent the time
after 1643 preparing for a triumphant
entrance
to her newly
acquired Northern castles and manor
homes, in anticipation of the time
when it would
be feasible to assert her acquisition
in person. And this
is where
The Great Picture comes in.

The painting would seem
to have been inspired
by Sir
Anthony Van Dyck’s
masterpiece of her second
husband Pembroke and
his first family painted
a decade
earlier for the wall
of the Double
Cube Room of Wilton House.21It
has been suggested that
Anne might have
had a hankering
to out-do
the Earl
of Pembroke’s Great
Picture, even as she
was living at his benevolence
in the luxury of Baynard’s
Castle, his magnificent
London safe house.

Moreover, the inspiration
of her mother was ever-present
in her
thoughts. Lady
Anne correctly
anticipated
that she would
have
a struggle with
her tenants once she
journeyed north and
asserted her
seigniorial rule
over her northern
properties. A similar
problem — that of collecting
the rents from the tenants — had beset Countess Margaret when,
at the death of Anne’s father,
she came into her dower
properties located in Westmoreland. It had taken Lady Anne nearly
40 years to attain ownership of the property; receiving the income
she was due could be
almost as formidable a problem. There were likely to be
hundreds of law suits;
the 800 tenants living on the Westmoreland properties alone – not
to mention her other newly acquired estates — could be rather
unruly. According to
her biographer, as part of her campaign to get control, she had
learned from her mother the importance of “holding
herself up as a model
to be admired and followed.”22 The two triptychs
that she
commissioned were a
vital part of this
master
plan.

A detailed examination
of every inch of
the Appleby Triptych
is warranted
but beyond
the scope of
this presentation.
Needless to
say, a lot
of information and
imagery can be conveyed
in a
painting covering
162
square feet of wall
space. A brief survey
reveals fourteen
figures, related
inscriptions, coats
of arms, memorabilia,
jewels,
armor, furnishings
and the like, all
bordered by several dozen shields
with accompanying
biographies going
back six centuries.

Of
course, as stated earlier, the books
are the most
striking feature
of the
triptych. They
have evoked
much commentary
over the centuries
and were
most
recently discussed
in Edith Snook’s
Women, Reading
and Cultural Politics
in Early Modern
England. The author
notes that the
books in the triptych
are there to “confirm
her class position
and substantiate
her identity
as a
landowner.”23 Certainly
these PowerBooks
showcased the exceptional
erudition of the
seigniorial mistress
of Appleby and
Skipton
Castles when
she received visiting
nobility,
gentry, officials,
clergy, and even
her
tenants. That she
intended her Great
Pictures to be
viewed
by many and “appraised
approvingly”24 is
exactly the reason
why the absence
of Shakespeare
is puzzling.
On
this point
more will
be said
shortly.

But first let us
take an overview
of the
books that
are there.
Complete lists
are provided
in both Williamson’s
and Spences’ biographies,25 and
for a detailed
account of the
title, authors
and
content,
I recommend
the
fine essay by
Graham Parry
found in Art
and Patronage
in the
Caroline
Court. Along
with three obligatory
Holy Bibles,
the
heavy hitters
appear on
the Lady Anne’s
putative shelves:
Plutarch and
Ovid are among
the ancients,
Chaucer and Castiglione
are among the
greats of more
recent centuries.
It is, however,
the contemporary
English
writers that
deserve the most
scrutiny. Starting
of course with
Edmund Spenser,
there is a solid
line up of the
Romantic school
of writers, in
fact the hangers-on
of the Sidney
crowd. To be
sure, some are
more talented
than others.
Beginning with
Spenser and going
down the line,
one finds Philip
Sidney’s
Arcadia, George
Herbert’s
Poems, and scraping
the bottom of
the barrel, Sir
Fulke Greville’s
Works. One might
note that Greville’s
primary contribution
to the literature
of the age was
his hagiography
of Sir Philip
Sidney, in which
he perpetuated
a variation of
the infamous
tennis court
quarrel between
the “worthy” Philip
Sidney and the “notorious” Edward
de Vere, the
17th Earl of
Oxford.26

As with the
Sidney cluster,
other
inhabitants
of the shelves
are
closely associated.
Ben Jonson
shows up with
his Works,
and his
literary circle
is represented
with his mentor
William Camden’s
well received
Britannia.
Jonson’s
cohort from
his Mermaid
Tavern
days,27 the
great preacher
John Donne,
is
represented
twice, both
with his
Poems and his
Sermons. Donne’s
close friend
Sir Henry Wotton
is present
with his book
on architecture.
Of course it
is the inclusion
of Ben Jonson,
the
editor of Shakespeare’s
First Folio,
that makes
the absence
of
Shakespeare
all
the more imponderable.

In short, the
denizens
of the triptych
are the writers
for
whom Lady
Anne felt a warm
personal
inclination
or those
who were
generally
politically acceptable.
Phrased
more diplomatically
by biographer
Spence, here
was a
woman who “recognized
the dues of friendship” while she “kept abreast of current political
and religious issues.” Of course her beloved teacher Samuel Daniel makes
an appearance with two books, his Chronicles
of England and All
the Works
in Verse, plus he is singled out for an additional tribute with a background portrait
and a laudatory inscription. It would seem that William Shakespeare would fit
quite comfortably among such distinguished company, perhaps next to Arthur
Golding’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, or maybe in between
John Florio’s translation of Montaigne’s Essays and John Gerard’s
Herbal, works
that he made
use of
as building
blocks for
his own
masterpieces.

Ever-mindful
of the
academic niceties,
scholars
tip-toe
around Shakespearean
irregularities.
Again,
the historiography
is consistent.
Biographer
Holmes
does not comment
on the
absence of
Shakespeare’s
by-line,
but infuses
a Shakespearean
quotation
into
his discussion
of the
books,
a
handy
device
that gives
Shakespeare
a presence
which in
fact he
does
not have.28 Biographer
Spence
is
more forthright.
He
notes
the “lacunae,” then
by way
of explanation
surrounds
the apple
with
a few oranges.
But
at least
he noticed:

“The
towering giants by today’s criteria, Shakespeare
and Milton, are absent, likewise Raleigh, Sir Francis Bacon and James
I. In view of the Pembrokes’ patronage, Shakespeare’s absence
is a little surprising… She may have had political and personal
reservations about the rest.”29

“Political
and personal reservations”? Indeed. The account
of William Shakespeare’s life written by Sir Sidney Lee for
The Dictionary of National Biography offers this assessment: “The
highest estimate was formed of Shakespeare’s work by his contemporaries,
by critics as well as playgoers.” Noting the popularity of
Hamlet, he goes on to stress Shakespeare’s “literary
power and sociability.” Lee states that “Elizabeth quickly
showed him special favor” and insists that “until the
end of her reign, his plays were repeatedly acted in her presence.”30 Moreover,
it is well accepted that “Shakespeare” enjoyed
the patronage of the Earl of Southampton, and Lady Anne’s second husband
and his brother “prosequuted both [the plays], and their Authour living,
with so much fauour,” if those words in the First Folio introduction
can be believed. The absence of “Shakespeare” in Lady Anne’s
"Great Picture" should be a disconcerting signal that there is something
wrong with the traditional story. Therefore, I suggest we consider thoughtfully
the biographer’s comment and search for an author omitted because of
a “political
or personal” reservation.

As Lady Anne was the step-mother of Oxford’s grandchildren, there might
have been room for rancor within the family. A likely cause of friction could
have been the fact that Pembroke settled on his second Countess, Lady Anne,
the property that King James had given his first Countess, Susan Vere, as a
wedding present. Alienating his first wife’s property could cause some
serious ill will between his children and their step-mother. That’s
personal.

Taking a broader perspective, the triptychs would be perceived
as the physical embodiment of Lady Anne’s great patrimony.
As such, the shields and inscriptions bordering the center
panel carried the chain of title, proclaiming the legitimacy
of her claim to the lands that made her rich. The appearance of the books
further
enhances the themes wealth and authority. As Edith Snook points out in
her aforementioned study, in early modern England books signaled
wealth and power.
The sheer number of them in the triptych made a statement which was all
the more impressive because books were costly and “ordinary
men, even professional men, would not be able to afford so
many.”31

Yet the commanding presence of the books opens the door to something
at an even higher level than mere admiration. As previously stated, when
the
war
ended, Lady Anne headed north with her triptychs in tow. The triptych
destined for Appleby would be bequeathed to her older daughter along
with the Westmoreland
estates; the Skipton triptych would ultimately be part of her younger
daughter’s
inheritance along with the Craven lands. These great paintings were literal,
tangible icons of the new dynasty that Lady Anne envisioned for her two
daughters, built on the shoulders of the great inheritance that reposed
in her. The triptychs
were a bridge to future generations and the books so proudly displayed
were freighted with a message. I submit to you that the ultimate message
in the
triptychs is a cultural message, an affirmation of something that we
call High Culture. Mathew Arnold has defined “high culture” as “‘the
best which has been thought and said in the world,’ the totality
of social life – the patterns, behaviors, artifacts, ideas, and
values – [the
best of these things], both acquired and transmitted.”32 This
is what Lady Anne Clifford wanted future generations of her family to
understand, to appreciate, and to uphold.

If the orthodox story of Shakespeare’s life is true, one is left to wonder
why Shakespeare would not have been an excellent fit in the triptych’s
bibliographic portfolio. Is not the Shakespeare canon the very soul
of High Culture? Surely the Pembrokes’ patronage of Shakespeare’s First
Folio, plus the effort and expense associated with its production, would lead
us to believe that it would have been a most worthy selection. But should not
something representative of Shakespeare’s work, if not the First
Folio itself, have made an appearance on the Countess’ symbolic shelves? She
could have placed a favorite quarto, say, Romeo and Juliet next to Don
Quixote,
or showcased one of Shakespeare’s great lyric poems if her taste ran
to verse rather than drama. After all, his Venus and Adonis and his Lucrece enjoyed public acceptance and critical acclaim, or so we are told in the
DNB by Sir Sidney Lee.

Aye, but there’s the rub. As egregious as the omission might
appear by today’s conventional wisdom, leaving out Shakespeare
must have been the right thing for an insightful – and politically
correct—person to do in the middle of the 17th century. The surviving
triptych serves as a
looking glass into the past. It is an historical mirror reflecting
the attitudes and
tastes of Stuart culture and society, a social structure of which
Lady Anne was an integral part.

The heart of the problem has been correctly assessed by many
Oxfordians starting with Eva Turner Clark’s Hidden
Allusions in Shakespeare’s Plays and, most recently, well covered by Mark Anderson in his comprehensive biography
Shakespeare By Another Name. As “Shakespeare,” Edward de Vere,
the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford wrote about the people he knew. Given that he
was born into the aristocracy, it was the high born of the land whose pathways
in life crossed his, and not often pleasantly according to orthodox historians.
As Shakespeare, the “slings and arrows” that he hurled at many
in the Court of Elizabeth made for such good copy, but did not endear him
to his fellow peers of the land.

In an article published recently in the Washington Post, Roger
Stritmatter notes the “audacious liberties” taken
by the author of Hamlet.33 When one
considers the fact that it was flat illegal to put on the stage
thinly veiled characterizations of public figures, Stritmatter asks
how the dramatist responsible
for Hamlet, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Twelfth
Night came to escape the punitive measures inflicted on other writers,
e.g. Thomas Nashe, John
Marston, and Ben Jonson just to name a few.34 Even
the placid Samuel Daniel was called before the Privy Council
to account for treasonable implications in his milquetoast and
forgettable play Philotas.35 In stark contrast, the author
of Richard II seems to have danced through the raindrops.

By the next generation when Lady Anne’s triptychs were underway
in the mid-1640’s, the Civil War was going strong. It was a
time of violent social revolution in which both the monarchy and
the aristocracy were fighting
for their very survival. In his massive tome The Crisis
of the Aristocracy, Princeton University historian Lawrence Stone states
that during this time
of Revolution, “the stock of the aristocracy was lower
than it had ever been before or was to be again for centuries.”36 It
was a viable possibility
that the
works of Shakespeare could impact the outcome in this struggle.
If the identity of
the writer was revealed, the identities of the people would
fall into place. As Mark Anderson points out, the “Shakespeare
ruse” was “a
subterfuge that distanced the scandalous works from its primary
subjects: the queen and her powerful inner circle of advisors.”37 Many
a reputation might be tarnished, perhaps beyond redemption.
For an aristocracy
under pressure, the Shakespeare Canon was simply not an acceptable
public relations piece.
When it came to “Shakespeare” and his work, it’s
easy to understand the general spirit of cooperation among
the aristocracy in maintaining
a dignified silence.38
Meantime, Lady Anne, the astute Triple Countess, followed the smartest
course of action. Like the dog-that-did-not-bark, she knew who
Shakespeare was.
So she left him out. Perhaps she along with the better informed members
of the other ruling families hoped that the Shakespeare Problem
would just fade
away. Perhaps the Shakespeare canon would become no more than an esoteric
offering to posterity, a quaint oddity along the lines of the Elizabethan
neck ruff. Something subsequent generations could well do without.
Whatever the future held in store, Lady Anne Clifford had correctly
gauged public
opinion and was playing to the crowd. Taken at face value, her two
mighty triptychs were advertisements of her authority and the legitimacy
of
her patrimony. Next, they would serve to inculcate her children
and her children’s
children with their illustrious place in the social order; there’s
nothing like a strong grasp of family values! The magnificence of the
paintings would leave those who looked upon them gasping in open-mouthed
awe. She had
every reason to believe that her Great Pictures would continue to carry
her message long into perpetuity. Ironically, she left out the one
whose legacy
would prove to be the most enduring.

3 Spence, 181-186. A fine discussion of the Appleby and Skipton
triptychs is found here with information comparing the paintings. The Skipton
Triptych was studied
more as it was historically more accessible, and was reproduced in a fine water
color (still extant) by George Perfect Harding. Spence concludes that both
triptychs were substantively alike, though minor differences did exist.

4 Foister, Susan. In her excellent essay “Foreigners
at Court: Holbein, Van Dyck and the Painter-Stainers Company,” Foister notes that
while a member of London’s Painters-Stainers Company, Jan von Belchamp
was sent to France to paint portraits of the King and Queen. He also was responsible
for “a
number of imaginary portraits of royal ancestors.” Art and Patronage
in the Caroline Court, Essays in honour of Sir Oliver Millar. Ed. David Howarth.
Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 40.

12 Acheson, Katherine O. The Diary of Anne Clifford 1616-1619,
A Critical Edition. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1995. Of particular
interest
in this edition
is the extended section of Annotations (pages 133-183) elucidating the people,
things, books, plays and events mentioned in the 3 year time period covered
in this portion of her diary. Many more details are provided by Lady Anne Clifford’s
three 20th century biographies Dr. George Williamson, Martin Holmes, and Richard
Spence. The editions of the Clifford Diaries by Vita Sackville-West and D.J.H.
Clifford cover additional years of her life with further accounts of her relationships
with her family and friends, and establish her integral place in the Jacobean
and Stuart social milieu.

16The Riverside Shakespeare. Ed. Evans, G. Blakemore. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974. The Dictionary of National Biography. Great
Britain:
Oxford University
Press, 1967-1968. As Samuel Daniel was the primary influence in Lady Anne’s
education, it is instructive examine how much familiarity he himself may have
had with Shakespeare’s writing. On page 51 of The Riverside Shakespeare,
Daniel’s Civil Wars is listed as a source for Richard II; and it is stated
that Shakespeare is “probably indebted” to Samuel Daniel. However,
the DNB (Vol.V, p.480) provides this critique of Daniel’s work: “His
epic on the civil wars fails as a poem. It is merely historical narrative,
very rarely relieved by imaginative episode. Some alterations made in the 1609
edition
were obviously suggested by a perusal of Shakespeare’s Richard II.” If
one is very alert, on page 375 of Volume III of his Narrative and Dramatic
Sources of Shakespeare, one will find that Geoffrey Bullough concurs with the
DNB. Who
indeed was “indebted” to whom?

17 Spence, 68, 131.

18 Holmes, Martin. Proud Northern Lady. London: Phillimore, 1975.
5,6. Holmes gives a sympathetic and informative account in chapters one and
two of Lady Anne’s
youth, the death of her father, and the disputed inheritance.

19 Williamson, 86

20 Spence, 40-58.

21 Howarth, David. Images of Rule, Art and Politics in the
English Renaissance 1485-1649. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 226-228,
304.

22 Spence, 138-145, 27.

23 Snook, Edith. Women, Reading and the Cultural Politics of
Early Modern England. Great Britain: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2005. 1,3.

24 Spence, 182, 195.

25 Williamson, pp. 498-500; Spence, pp 190-191.

26 Looney, J. Thomas, Shakespeare Identified, Vol. I. Port Washington,
NY: Kennikat for Minos Publishing Co., 1974. The Oxford/Sidney rivalry existed
ostensibly
on literary grounds between competing court poets of the Euphuist and Romantic
schools respectively. Looney recognized (page 300) the “social tendencies” inherent
in this dichotomy, noting the “glamour that has gathered round one name
and the shadow that has remained over the other.” Lady Anne’s inclusion
of Philip Sidney’s Arcadia and exclusion of the Euphuist school (of which
Shakespeare’s Love’s Labours’ Lost is a fine example) indicates
that this trend was taking hold by the mid-1600s.

31 Snook, The footnote (page 9) provides information on book ownership
in past centuries from Richard Altick’s The English Common Reader, Ohio
State University Press, 2002.

32 Snook, 8.

33 Stritmatter, Roger. “Is This the Bard We See Before
Us? Or Someone Else?” The
Washington Post, March 18, 2007. In this article, Stritmatter states that “The
author aired the power elites’ dirty linen through literary indirection,” and “used
stage symbolism to conduct his own fiercely partisan feuds.”

34 Clare, Janet. ‘Art Made Tongue-tied by Authority,’ Elizabethan
and Jacobean Dramatic Censorship. New York: Manchester University Press, 1999.
In
chapter V (pages 119-172) Clare presents a detailed discussion of the censorship
practices and accompanying punitive measures taken against Jonson, Marston
and others.

37 Anderson, Mark. Shakespeare by Another Name. NewYork: Gotham
Books, 2005. xxxiii. In the Shakespeare Matters newsletter (Summer, 2006, pages
10-11), Bonner Cutting
expounds further on this point: “Ultimately, the Stratford-on-Avon legend
became the tool which severed the umbilical cord connecting the ugly thing
(the work) from its birth mother (the author).”

38 Whalen, Richard F. Shakespeare – Who Was He? Connecticut:
Praeger Publishers, 1994. Whalen states (pages 115-117) that Oxford’s
authorship of the Shakespeare canon was an “open secret,” and notes
that secrets of 20th century Presidents, i.e. Roosevelt (crippling polio),
Kennedy (womanizing) and Wilson
(disabling stroke) were successfully kept from the public even in the “intense
scrutiny” of modern reporting.